By Kate Brown
Reports from The National Housing Federation’s ‘Yorkshire and the Humber Home Truths 2017/2018’ concluded that the average full-time worker in Sheffield now needs an astounding 62% pay rise in order to afford a mortgage on a typical home in the city. Any full-time workers who earn under £40,580 per year would be unable to buy the average home in the Sheffield city region.
The report found that despite house prices in Yorkshire being significantly lower than the national average there is an acute housing crisis within this region. However, average wages in Yorkshire are relatively below average and salaries here have failed to keep up with house prices. Now, the average home costing £177,538 is seven times higher than the average annual income of £24,991.
Chief executive of the South Yorkshire Housing Association, Tony Stacey OBE, said: “we tend to talk as though there is just one housing crisis, but it takes many different forms. It is not just about the impossibility of affording a home in London or people sleeping rough” and “for far too many local people, affording housing is simply out of reach. We should expect more from both national and local politicians to find solutions that work for all sections of society here in Sheffield.”
Nationally, the demand for homes to be built averages around 300,000. Currently, between half and two-thirds of that figure is being built. A high demand in Yorkshire saw that between the years 2012 and 2016, 36,000 too few homes were built. In South Yorkshire alone this figure was 6,500 homes too short. In response, South Yorkshire Housing Association pledged to build 1,180 homes by 2021. Whereas Sheffield Council revealed plans to provide 1,000 new council homes by 2021.
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